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| French filmmakers of the 1920s were inspired by |
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| experimental techniques prevalent in other art forms of the period |
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| As Modernism took hold around the world French artists embraced |
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| abstract expression- primarily through Dadaism and Surrealism |
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| Dadaism rejected all sense of |
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| free association and dream like images |
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| Dadaists films from artists like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray initialized |
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| abstract shapes and patterns with no meaning other than chaos of form |
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| The most famous surrealist film was |
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Chien Andalou (1929) collaboration between Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali that purposefully rejects conscious interpretation
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| After the introduction of sound film in the late 1920s French filmmaking shifted |
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| way from experimental forms towards a new sense of realism |
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| Poetic Realism was the dominant mode of filmmaking in France |
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| The Poetic Realism films used |
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| used the invisible style of Hollywood to create realistic narratives yet |
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| yet these narratives were presented |
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| in a lyrical style that strongly commented on French culture of the 1930s |
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| Whereas the Germans focused |
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| the PR filmmakers had a strong sense |
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| of the camera and how it could be present humanistic characters |
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| PR followed the traditions of French Impressionism |
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| where small individual pieces could form a cohesive whole |
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| The son of Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir |
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| Jean Renoir was the most prolific director of PR |
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| Renoir used satire to comment upon |
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| French society, and although his films were often funny they were tightly structured and other bitter towards social customs |
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| Renoir directed many successful films during the 1930s culmination in his 2 masterpieces |
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Grand Illusions (1937) and The Rues of the Game (1939)
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| The Parisian premier of The Rules of the Game ended in a small riot after many of the spectators openly expressed their shock and disapproval of Renoir’s frank criticism |
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of French culture and sexual customs
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| 4 film 2 shorts, a 30 min film and a feature yet he is widely considered to be a among the most important figures in PR |
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| Vigo directed L’Atlalante (1934) |
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| while dying of tuberculosis the film influenced not only Jean Renoir and other PRs but was also greatly admired by the major figures of the French New Wave |
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Term
The most epic films of PR undoubtedly come from the collaboration between
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director Marel Carne and novelist poet screenwriter Jacques Prevert
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| light lyrical visual style of Renoir and Vigo and applied it to dramatic narratives that emphasized the social and political problems of French life |
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| Among their best works were |
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Definition
| Port of Shadows (1938) Le Jour se leve (Daybreak 1939) and the Children of Paradise (1945) |
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Term
| The Children of Paradise was created during the |
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| German occupation of France as result several of the Jewish crew members had to work in secrecy and were never credited |
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| The events surrounding WWII greatly changd Hollywood cinema while the 1930s |
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| had seen peak attendance at American theatres the US govt had taken notice of Hollywoods vertical integration structure |
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| only selling major features in combo with less popular films to non-studio owned theatres was seen as contributing to quickly growing monopolies in Hollywood |
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In 1940 the govt issued a decree that Paramount the leading studio of the 5 majors had to stop its practice
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Many major directors made documentaries
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| like Frank Capra and John Ford |
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| documentaries informing both colliders and the public about wartime issues such as |
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| Capra’s Why We Fight series |
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| Friendly Neighbor” policy |
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| which aimed to fight Axis influence in South America |
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| The ruling declared that the making the studios had to sell off their theatres, |
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marking the end of not only Hollywood’s vertical integration structure but the “Studio Era” itself
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| In 1947 the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held its first hearing on the association between Hollywood and communism resulting in the |
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| all time economic low in 1950 |
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| In the early 1950s tvs were becoming household items at first the studios resisted but some most notably |
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| Columbia even created tv production units |
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| To differentiate the theatre experience from watching tv Hollywood unveiled new widescreen formats |
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| cinemascope and vistavision |
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Term
| The most prominent new “genre” after WWII was film noir a group of films |
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| tied together by a dark aesthetics and darker narratives |
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troubled and conflicted main characters who were often talked into series crimes by femme fatales tapping into America’s unconscious post-war fears about foreign influence
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| Hitchcock directed several masterpieces during the 1950s and early 1960s including |
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Definition
| Rear Window (1954) Vertigo (1958) North by Northwest (1959) and Pyscho (1960) |
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known not for thrillers or westerns but instead for female-centric melodramas
-All that Heaven Allows (1955) Written on the Wind (1956) and Imitation of Life
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Term
| The biggest problem facing sound cinema was |
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Definition
| synchronization how could the image and the sound be played together without losing sync |
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Term
| One significant side effect of this process was |
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Definition
| the standardization of film speed sound records and projects better at higher speeds so 24 fps became the standard film speed |
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Term
| The first financially successful process used |
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Definition
| 78 RPM records played in sync with the film- this process was known as “sound on disc” |
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Term
| The process was difficult to work with but became successful in park because it was used on the first major sound feature Warner Bros |
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Definition
| The Jazz Singer (1927) using the Vitaphone system (essentially a silent film with sound elements) |
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Term
| Unfortunately each disc used with the sound on disc system could only hold |
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Definition
| ten minutes of sound making it difficult to sync with feature films |
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Term
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Another side effect of the sound process this resulted in the standardization of film reels at
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10 minutes one for each disc of sound
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Term
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Definition
The process requires sound information to be converted into electric signals which are then converted to light waves recorded in narrow strips along the side of a piece of film
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Optical Sound Ensures that the picture and sound remains
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| in sync and allows one machine to project both the image and sound |
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Term
| Three German inventors patented the first optical system |
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| Tri-Ergon process in 1921 later selling the American rights to the Fox Corporation in 1927 |
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Term
| A US inventor named Lee de Forest simultaneously creates an alternate optical process de Forest had previously invented the audion tube, which allowed |
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Definition
| sound to be amplified, and solved another major problem for sound films |
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Term
| Optical Sound came in two varieties |
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Definition
variable density optical and variable area optical
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Term
| With variable density the different sounds are produced by |
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Definition
| the optical strip being lighter or denser with the variable-area system the amplitude changed as the strip itself became wider or narrower |
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| a soundproof camera housing for the camera that muffled its noise |
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| To pay for all of theses changes the studios borrowed heavily from the banks and many have argued |
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Definition
| that this dependence on a conservative American capital produced a conservative American cinema |
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Term
| One area of film production that embraced sound without the drawbacks of sound equipment was |
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| who thought Disney juxtaposed sound and image in ways that other American filmmakers could not |
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Term
Yet Americans went to the movies more often in the than another period in out history including today
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Definition
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Hollywood averaged _____ films per year in
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1930s compared to only 100-150 on average today
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Term
| During the 1920s (the Jazz Age) public demand allowed for |
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Definition
| increased sexuality, violence, and adult themes in popular film |
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Term
| While such subject manner continued to be popular with mass audiences following the crash, the depression also lead to an increased |
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Definition
| cultural and religious backlash against Hollywood and its immoral image |
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Term
| In the 1930s the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association adopted a set of censorship guideline written by their founder |
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Definition
| William Hayes, known as both the Production Code and the Hayes Code |
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Term
| Lacking any official authority in Hollywood, Hayes enlisted the |
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Definition
| Catholic Legion of Decency to support the Production Code-, which put great political pressure on Hollywood |
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Term
| The Code, rigorously enforce by Hayes’ assistant |
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Definition
| Joseph Breen and the “The Breen Office” heavily censored the content of American movies for over 30 years |
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| For example musicals and gangster films heavily dominated the 1930s whereas the 1940s featured |
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Definition
| screwball comedies and dramas |
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Definition
| Films such as 42nd Street (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) focused on style over narrative with lavish spectacles taking center stage |
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Term
| Frank Capra is best known for sentimental films like |
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Definition
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
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Term
| Capra was the first director to demand that his name be places about the film’s title (i.e. A Frank Capra Film) shifting power |
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Definition
away from producers and into the hands of directors
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Term
| John Ford helped to shape |
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Definition
| style of the American western |
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Term
| Ford’s career spanned several decades which westerns |
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Definition
| like Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956) as well as drams like The Grapes of Wrath (1940) |
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Term
| Hitchcock spent the 1920s and the 1930s directing and perfecting suspense thrillers in England |
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Definition
Films like Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Notorious (1946) brought Hitchcock’s brand of suspense to the US where he often bumped heads with producer David O. Selznick
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Term
| Welles, a young maverick of the radio was given an unprecedented contact by |
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Definition
RKO pictures to produce a film in 1940 a contact that gave him complete artistic control
Citizen Kane 1941 |
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Term
| Citizen Kane tells the life story of |
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Definition
rich newspaperman Charles Foster Kane (not so loosely based on the actual newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst) as told by his scorned friends and lovers
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| Hearst was so offended by Kane that he used all of his power to discredit the film successfully dampening Welles’ career and causing |
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| Kane to be overlooked by the film community for over 2 decades |
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